Gonna be noisy in Carson and not because of Maria Sharapova

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Michelle Larcher de Brito, a 16-year-old from Portugal who gained tennis notice this year because of the loudness of her grunting as well as her groundstrokes, has been given a wild-card entry into the main draw of the 2009 LA Women’s Tennis Championships that begin Monday at the Home Depot Center in Carson.

Also receiving wild cards into the main draw are Vania King of Long Beach and CoCo Vandeweghe, a 17-year-old from Rancho Santa Fe.

Maria Sharapova, who has occasionally been criticized for the volume of her on-court efforts, is the glamour name of the tournament, which lost Svetlana Kuznetsova on Wednesday. Kuznetsova withdrew because of an injury. Neither Venus nor Serena Williams entered the tournament closest to their roots in Compton.

-- Diane Pucin